Five art things, About time, what happened to the last few weeks? False starts, broken eyes curtailing art adventures, we’re still itching to really properly get going and didn’t we say all this last time? Well besides the broken eyes thing, yes we did. On we go and never mind whatever we said last time, that was then, this, once again is about this week and next and cake and yes you are right, at the end of last year we were asking if London’s art scene gone a little flat? Are the newer galleries a little too full of themselves and believing their own hype? Is it all just a little too conservative? Dare we say politely boring? We did go to lots of shows in the early part of the year msot of wgich we chose not to cover, the polivcy around here is still only to cover things when we feel really positive about those things and most of the shows in the early part of the year haven’t really been worth bothering with, mosty we’ve been politely interested and we could have maybe written an uncomitted review or two…

Here, for what any of this is worth is our first five art things for quite a few weeks. Five more art things? Five art things, five more art things happening somewhere around right now (or any moment now). Five art shows to check out in the coming days. We do aim to make this an (almost) weekly round up of recommended art events, five shows, exhibitions or things we rather think might be worth checking out. Mostly London things for that is where we currently operate and explore, and like we said last time, these five recommendations come with no claims that they are “the best five” or the “Top Five”, we’re not one of those annoying art websites that ignore most things whilst claiming to be covering everything and proclaiming this or that to be the “top seven things” or the “best things this weekend”. This Five Things thing is simply a regular list of five or so recommended art things happening now or coming up very soon that we think you might find as interesting as we think we will…

And we should add, that entry to these recommended exhibitions and events, unless otherwise stated, is free.

1: Hayv Kahraman – She has no name at Pilar Corrias – 12th April until  25th May 2024 – – This one feels a little more important than most of the others. “Pilar Corrias is delighted to present She has no name, a solo exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Hayv Kahraman at its Conduit Street gallery. Reflecting on her early experiences as an Iraqi refugee in Sweden, Kahraman’s new body of work examines the ways in which colonial practices in the field of botany continue to perpetuate hierarchical structures and gendered metaphors within the natural world and, by extension, sociopolitical contexts”.

Pilar Corrias is found at 51 Conduit Street, London, W1S 2YT. The gallery is open  Fridays and Saturdays, 11am until 6pm and by appointment on other days. I don’t know about you but I never get on with having to make an appointment.

2: Sam Windett – Horses at The Approach – 12th April until  11th May 2024 – Oh how I would like to just walk out of the studio door and head to the Approach right now, it is only a five minute walk away, oh how we all take these things for granted, oh to see some art in the flesh (besides my own and my modest collection of other people’s work), oh for a crisp pint  downstairs after an hour upstairs just looking at art. 

“The Approach is pleased to present Horses, a solo exhibition of new work by Sam Windett. Operating between abstraction, landscape and oblique representation, his practice is centred around a process that experiments with accumulating and reworking materials. Through eliminating and editing, modelling and remodelling, Windett allows for the successes and failures of the creative process to be equally crucial aspects of the work.

For Horses, Windett has produced a series of paintings that employ parameters inspired by the standardised design of horseboxes. Windett observed a formal consistency of the exterior size and shape of these objects, whilst the contents (if any) remained concealed and ambiguous. The paintings in Horses emerge from the duality of this repeated framework and the various possibilities of custom design and potential content.

Windett approaches the process of painting from a place of discovery, allowing each work to unfurl without prior planning. In some his distinctive triptych format emerges – the canvas being vertically divided into three sections, perhaps alluding to doorways and entrances, while recurring motifs appear in the margins: numbers, as well as spherical shapes that evoke suns, moons, holes or eyes. Others feature smaller sculptural reliefs that take on the appearance of windows or vignettes. These smaller works each begin with a wooden tray-like border containing compositions suggestive of landscapes; night scenes with moons and stars, and of course the backs of horseboxes. Here the surface is interrupted with collaged elements, cut-outs of linen canvas, painted coils of twine and other studio detritus. These works have an existential quality to them, understood as portals, they allow a space for contemplation, where one can be on the inside projecting one’s desires outwards, or stood on the outside looking in.

For Horses, Windett wanted to create paintings that would be perceived as physical objects, therefore this show emerges as a resistance to contemporary image culture and consumption. Windett’s deliberate incorporation of physical elements and textures invites viewers to engage with the artworks on a visceral level, counteracting the overwhelming digital saturation we experience online by showcasing works made so evidently by hand and with a tactility and materiality that can only be enjoyed fully IRL…”

The Approach is found on the first floor above the pub, 47 Approach Road, Bethnal Green, London E2 9LY, Access to the gallery via The Approach Tavern pub, there’s a brown door at the end of the left side of the bar that the staff may or may not feel like pointing out to you. The gallery is open Wednesday to Saturday (although some places say Tuesday) 12–6pm or by appointment. Further Organ coverage from The Approach (in 15 years or more of going there they’ve got said hello once, that’s East London galleries for yer)

3: Barbara Kruger  at Sprüth Magers, London – 12th April until 18th May 2024 – “Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers are pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Kruger at the London gallery”.

“The razor-sharp, witty and unmistakable work of Barbara Kruger explores the power of image and word and touches on the dynamics of control, class, corruption and consumerism. For over four decades, her voice and aesthetic have transcended the insularity of the art world and influenced everyday visual culture. The artist’s most recent text-based wall work and series of vinyls will be set in dialogue with a group of “paste-ups”—collages from the 1980s related to some of her early and best-known works”.

Sprüth Magers is found at 7A Grafton Street, London, W1S 4EJ, the exhibition runs from 12th April until 18th May 2024, the gallery is open Tuesday through to Saturday, 10am until 5pm

4: Hazel Brill –  Amber at Workplace – “Workplace is delighted to announce Amber, a new exhibition of sculptures by artist Hazel Brill”, a show that runs from 12th April until 25th May 2024.

“Rooted in her research around prometheus narratives in gothic fiction and sci-fi, her latest body of work combines an assortment of mechanical and organic materials taking inspiration from how biomimicry and biotechnology in architecture blurs the lines between living and non-living. The title references Brill’s interest in the dual seduction and fear around transformative technologies, as amber lights can be both a warning and a calming, protective presence. Amber has further significance as the resin holds the non-living in stasis, not allowing organisms to decompose, leading to mythologies around it holding the essence of life. Brill uses microscopic images of ancient plant fragments and fossilised insects found inside amber in the designs of her sculptures as well as incorporating pine resin and amber in the materials.

Workplace is at 50 Mortimer Street, London, W1W 7RP. Exhibition opening hours: Tue – Sat, 10 – 6pm. The show runs from 12th Aptil until 24th May.

5: Lick at Safehouse 1 & 2 – 12th until 14th April 2024 – A pop-up group show of new work by twenty-two TURPS and MASS alumni. “Held in a derelict Victorian building, LICK invites art-lovers to taste and savour the content of the artworks in a pop-up show. Visitors to LICK will discover new work by 22 acclaimed international artists, painters and sculptors. The exhibiting artists – a collective from Turps Art School, London have arranged this group show to celebrate the diversity of contemporary painting and sculptural practice”. Never quite worked out Turps (and their fees) but they do seem to come up with some interetesting art/artists and Safehouse is a rather wonderful space. “Don’t miss it, Lick it! A mouth-watering collection of new work from highly rated talent to watch. Stop dribbling, we’ll see you there” is what they say.  Artists involved:  Vivienne Baker, Joanne Boyle, Alison Berry, Hermione Carline Hunter, Eugenia Cuellar, Peter Driver, Jason Gregory, Janine Hall, Caitlin Heffernan, Giuseppe Iozzi, Nick Ivins, Beata Kozlowska, CD Lewis, Blandine Martin, Elaine McCracken, Jane Merriman, Zelga Miller, Susan Montgomery, Sarah Praill, Helen Scalway, Djuro Selec, Victoria Snazell. here’s their Instagram feed.

Safehouse is at  137 – 139 Copeland Road, Peckham, London, SE15 3SN. THe space is open 10am until 6pm on al lthree days of the show.

6: Georg Baselitz – A Confession of My Sins at White Cube Bermondsey – 10th April until 16th June 2024. A just opened show that really needs no help or support from us so we won’t mention it as one of the five, am rather looking forward to getting back out there and seeing it in the flesh in the next few weeks though once the you know what is working again. “‘In a sense, what painters really do when they paint is paint a situation that they are in: they paint actions.’ – Georg Baselitz

“Georg Baselitz marks his return to White Cube Bermondsey for the first time in eight years with the solo exhibition ‘A Confession of My Sins’. Comprising a large body of new work produced during an intensive year in the studio, the exhibition features large-scale paintings and a selection of works on paper in which the artist, now 86, surveys the past six and a half decades of his practice. From the vantage point of old age, Baselitz reflects upon a lifetime of lived experience and artistic invention, paying homage to key inspirations, motifs and subject matter, as well as unearthing pictorial references from his youth. ‘I’ve got my early childhood drawings of eagles, stags, deer, dogs and so on in folders,’ Baselitz remarks. ‘Every now and then I look at them, and I think was it a good time, was it a bad time?’”

White Cube Bermondsey is at 144 – 152 Bermondsey Street, London, SE1 3TQbut you probably knew that already. The great big  space is open Tuesday through to Sunday, 10am until 6pm every day besides Sunday when they don’t open until midday. The Georg Baselitz show has just opened and goes on until 16th June 2024.

Did we mention the date for the 2024 Art Car Boor Fair had been announced…. ORGAN PREVIEW: Always a highlight of the London art year, the date for the 2024 Art Car Boot Fair has now been announced…